Green tips for the lazy

TAMARA CHUANG • Special to the U-T

Lowe's recycling center allows customers to recycle rechargeable batteries, CFLs, cell phones and plastic shopping bags in one centralized location. The bins can be found near the entrance of the stores.

/ BusinessWire

Lowe's recycling center allows customers to recycle rechargeable batteries, CFLs, cell phones and plastic shopping bags in one centralized location. The bins can be found near the entrance of the stores.

Lowe's recycling center allows customers to recycle rechargeable batteries, CFLs, cell phones and plastic shopping bags in one centralized location. The bins can be found near the entrance of the stores. (/ BusinessWire)

In this era of eco-friendliness, even the laziest among us feel some guilt when tossing a soda can into the trash. While you may never compost your coffee grinds, you no longer have to go out of your way to be better to the earth. Several companies make it convenient to go green by offering recycling bins near the front door. And while cans, plastic bags, battery and phone disposal boxes have become common, here are some items you may not realize local stores and businesses will accept:

Retire old drugs safely: Don’t dump unneeded medicine down the toilet because it could end up in our water supply. But if you missed your community’s “Take Back” day, Walgreens recently rolled out the Safe Medication Disposal Program. For $2.99, customers can put expired or unused prescription drugs or over-the-counter drugs in a sealed envelope, which are later incinerated. Other participating retailers are listed at the TakeAway site, run by Sharps Compliance Inc.

Recycle gardening containers: Gardening gets into full gear this time of year. But after you plant the parsley and pansies, don’t toss the plastic plant trays. The garden center at Lowe’s home-improvement stores will take them to be reused or recycled. It will also accept pots and tags no matter where they were purchased and regardless of condition.

Annoying bottle caps and lids: Many curbside recyclers don’t accept lids on bottles and want you to separate the two before tossing recyclables in the blue bin. It may take just two seconds, but how many of you skip that step? Aveda salons started a campaign to get more city recyclers to accept the plastic caps with the number 5, the type of cap usually found on shampoo, laundry,beverage and condiment plastic bottles. It also has cap-recycling bins in its salons. Think caps on shampoo, water and soda bottles. It also includes flip-top caps on ketchup, laundry detergents and some jars.

Unnecessary specs: Have a drawer of old eye glasses? Lenscrafters, through its OneSight program, accepts gently used prescription glasses, which are then cleaned, repaired and donated to the needy in developing countries and the United States. Lions Clubs International also accepts eye glass donations.

Do good, drink up: There’s got to be a better use for corks from wine bottles than cork bulletin boards. Well, Whole Foods Markets, which put cork recycling bins in all stores last year, has it figured out: Corks are ground up and turned into wine shippers, floor tiles and other post-consumer products.

Old gadgets: What do you do with your old iPhone? Drop it off at a Target’s MP3 recycling bin. Better yet, make some money by sending it to one of numerous stores willing to pay you cash or a gift card. They, in turn, fix it and resell it or dismantle it for parts and recycling. Pretty much every store has an electronics trade-in program, including Costco

, Best Buy, RadioShack and Wal-Mart. Head over to EcoSquid.com to compare the payouts. Or, if you need cash fast, find a kiosk from San Diego’s EcoATM (find a location HERE), which analyzes the gadget and offers immediate compensation.

Shed obsolete cables: With the abundance of tech gadgets and move to wireless, there is an excess of old USB cables, power cords and who-knows-where-that-came-from plug. Head to Best Buy or a Goodwill Reconnect store, which takes them off your hands for free.

Call the packing peanut hotline: Packing peanuts are great for cushioning items in the mail. But what do with them afterward? Call 800-828-2214, the Peanut Hotline. For other plastic packing materials, check with the Alliance of Foam Packaging Recyclers for collection sites.

Opt-out of the Yellow Pages: The days of the bulky telephone directories are numbered. Even the National Yellow Pages Service Association realizes it. The organization now lets consumers go online and opt out of receiving the tomes HERE. If you find that you can’t live without one, the site also shows you how to recycle last year’s directory.

Hit the Web: If you’re stumped on where or how to recycle your old stuff, there are several sites that let you search by category and ZIP code. Here are a few:

Blue recycling trash cans have become ubiquitous, making it easy to toss paper and other recyclables. If you haven’t noticed, stores like Ikea, Target, Best Buy and others offer a variety of recycling bins at every store so all you have to do is remember to bring recyclables before you go shopping. If you don’t see a bin, just ask. A sampling of who takes what items.

Cathy Ives, a San Diego native, started the exhaustive Green Eco Services blog while remodeling her Encinitas home three years ago. She’s tackled everything, from recycling dentures to underwear, not to mention a ton of ways to make money off recycling. Here’s her list of some of the most unusual things you can recycle:

1. Prosthetic limbs – Prosthetic arms, legs and other limbs aren’t usually reused here in the U.S. because of legal reasons, but there’s great need in Third World countries. Ives has an extensive list of groups that will accept donations, including the Amputee Coalition of America.

2. Toilets – If you’ve got a good toilet you no longer need, Habitat for Humanity will take it. There are also some waste management firms that will take them for reuse — California’s Inland Empire Utilities Agency used crushed toilets for its foundation. Check I Love A Clean San Diego’s site for recyclers.

3. Tennis balls – Did you know tennis balls aren’t easily bio-degradable? But there’s still hope for balls that have lost their bounce. Arizona-basedreBounces

has a machine that re-pressurizes old balls for reuse. ReBounces accepts old balls and if you’ve got more than 200, it’ll pay for the postage.

4. Flip flops –UniquEco launched “The Flip Flop Initiative” to clean up the shores of Kenya, where thousands of flip flops washed up each year. The shoes are turned into art, fashion and other goods.

5. Cigarette butts – Scientists in China discovered that soaking cigarette butts in water creates a solution to protect steel pipes from corroding. A Brazilian fashion designer spins them into clothing. And an Ohio inventor turns them into adhesives and sealants. Ives soaks butts to keep pests away from plants. Who knew?